“You don’t look crazy,” she told me.

I stopped pulling the flat sheet straight and glanced over my shoulder at the little girl.

“I’m not,” I said, my voice flat and final.

It would be hard to pin down exactly why this hurt me, but it did. What a senseless thing to waste emotion on, the repetition by a child of something she’d apparently heard adults say.

“So why do you walk by yourself at night? Isn’t that a scary thing to do? Only ghosts and monsters are out at night.”

My first response was that I myself was scarier than any ghost or monster. But that would hardly be reassuring to a little girl, and already other ideas were flickering through my head.

“I’m not afraid at night,” I said, which was close to the truth. I was not any more afraid at night than I was in the daytime, for sure.

“So you do it to show them you’re not afraid?” Heather asked.

The same wrenching pain filled me that I’d felt when I saw Jack’s bloody nose. I straightened, dirty sheets in a bundle in my arms, and looked down at the little girl for a long moment. “Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly why I do it.”

I knew then and there that I would be at the therapy session the next night. It was time.

For now, I taught Heather how to make hospital folds.

Chapter Two

I slid through the designated door the next night as though I’d come to steal some help, not to get it for free.

There were four cars in the parking lot, which was only partially visible from the street. I recognized two of them.

The side door we were to use was a heavy metal door. It slid shut behind me with a heavy thud, and I walked toward the only two rooms that were well lit. All the other doors up and down the corridor were shut, and I was willing to bet they were probably locked as well.

A woman appeared in the first open doorway and called, “Come on in! We’re ready to get started!” As I got closer I could see she was as dark as I was blond, she was as soft as I am hard, and I was to find she talked twice as much as I’d ever thought about doing. “I’m Tamsin Lynd,” she said, extending her hand.